


4 Times Kyle Drove Derek Crazy

by waldorph



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-01
Updated: 2008-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set pre-series: Derek is 7 years older, and he didn't sign up for this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4 Times Kyle Drove Derek Crazy

**1.**

Kyle has always been Derek's responsibility. His parents are douchebags anyway- fighting and shit, never taking the time to see how their own psycho drama is fucking up his life.

Fucking up Kyle's life.

So Derek, who is, after all, 7 years older, has taken over raising Kyle. He teaches him to play ball (Derek's pretty good, on the A-Team on their middle school, and Coach says he's bound to make at least the Freshman team next year, if not Junior Varsity). Kyle hates it.

That's the thing about Kyle. He whines and whines and whines, but Derek knows, Derek just _knows_ that, like with everything else, when Kyle hits that ball and it soars over the picnic tables and over to the monkey bars across the park, Kyle will never shut up about it. Kyle _loves_ to be good at stuff, and the thing is? This kid is really pretty good at everything he tries. The trick is getting him to do it.

That's why they were out back playing though. Kyle whining (as usual) and their parents throwing things inside, screaming ("I hate you!" "If I'm ruining your life, why don't you just leave?!" "You fucking bastard, I'll take the fucking kids, see if I don't!").

"Fireworks," Kyle had enthused, eyes going wide and delighted.

Yeah. No. Derek saw video of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in history. He watched Pearl Harbor. He knows what missiles look like. Hell, he's a 13-year-old boy, of _course_ he knows what missiles look like. He also totally knows what fireworks look like because Jimmy's older brother got some on the Black Market, and then almost blew up their house, and now Jimmy's older brother is off at like, bootcamp or whatever.

But that's so not the point.

Derek doesn't really think after everything clicked together, like his brain is a door that had just been unlocked and swung wide open. He just grabs Kyle's wrist- hard, too hard, the batting helmet still on Kyle's head, and he heads towards the manhole down the street. Tunnels. He _just_ did a project on this- during the Cold War they'd built these tunnels to protect from nuclear attack, and shit, he hopes they work.

He's dimly aware people are following him, but he's shoving Kyle, down, down, down further and further and further in. Kyle is crying, but he's not whining, and he's not bitching. Kyle seems to have a fucking clue.

Derek doesn't know what happened. Most of the people around him are kids from their street- kids who were outside and saw him run and figured... well, he doesn't know what, but he doesn't see his parents.

He won't see his parents again.

It takes two weeks for Kyle to figure that out. In the meantime, they find out that it's not nuclear- they were just missiles. So they can go topside without their flesh burning off, which, you know, bonus.

Kyle's having a meltdown because he's hungry, and tired, and dirty, and probably sunshine deprived- doesn't sun have vitamins or some shit that people are supposed to have? Derek didn't sign up for this, didn't- Kyle is not Derek's kid, he's his brother.

On September 11, the Machines kill 7 people, and Derek hears the name "John Connor" for the first time.

"This guy- yeah, John Connor, they say he's organizing people- going to fight the machines," Mrs. Herrerez, the Brown's housekeeper whispers in her heavily accented English. She's teaching Kyle Spanish to keep him occupied. Derek's pretty happy with that: it gives him some alone time, but shit, now the kid backtalks in two languages.

September 11 starts to mean hope to Derek, and he thinks that it's fucked up. He's not really old enough to remember 9/11, he was like, 5. But it's one of those days that people talk about all the time- 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.

Or they did. Now they talk about 8/29. Or they would, except nobody talks about it.

"Derek," Kyle whines. "I'm hungry."

**2.** Derek stops thinking of Kyle as his responsibility when Kyle turns 19 and gets taken by the Ts and escapes.

By himself.

Yeah, Derek still freaks out (in a subtle, totally masculine way) when he can't find Kyle, and they still sit and sleep beside each other, but Derek feels like he can relax after all these years. Kyle can take care of himself. _Does_ take care of himself. See, all those years ago? Derek didn't sign up for parenthood and kind of found himself filling the role because nobody else would. People were freaking out, and nobody was going to take responsibility for random kids, and besides, there were some creepy ass dudes down in the tunnels, and Derek was _not_ letting those dudes near his little brother.

But as Kyle had grown up, Derek had liked that better: he'd been a friend, and Kyle had always been a little old for his age. Hell, they all had to be. Nobody had the luxury of being a little kid.

"Seriously, and Connor was-"

"Jesus Christ, Kyle, shut _up_," he groans, pounding on his brother's shoulder.

"Whatever, you know what, dude? When you save Connor's life, you come talk to me," Kyle snorts.

"You better hope Connor saves your life," Derek retorts, turning around to look at his brother with his eyebrows lifted, "because I am about to kill you."

"Whatever," Kyle groans.

Derek reconsiders: maybe he'll kill who the fuck ever taught Kyle to say "whatever."

**3.** Derek hates that picture. Really fucking hates it. Sarah Connor is like their goddess, their Athena or some shit- she's Connor's driving force and now his kid brother is jerking off to her picture.

The woman has been dead for fucking years. 2003 or something.

Derek pretends not to hear, because they're in underground bunkers for fuck's sake- there is no such thing as privacy, and even though you'd think a guy's libido would take a hit from the, you know, _constant_ barrage from topside and, well, the robots? The fighting basically ensures that _everyone_ needs some alone time.

Derek just fucking wishes it wasn't a dead woman. There are hot chicks fighting with them. Hell, there are ugly ones and chicks in between: real strong women who fight. Women who have their kids because it's a statement: you can't have us, and we will grow in numbers even if you force us underground. These women? They don't need men for shit.

Doesn't mean they don't take pity on a poor guy from time to time, though. Derek shuts his eyes and tries not to think about women taking pity on anything, because his goddamn brother is jerking off to a fucking photo of a dead woman.

**4.** Thing is, the kid is about as smooth as Kyle was. Can't lie for crap, can't _hide_ for crap. So he knows something is up. Then Sarah Connor goes out of her way to save his sorry ass, and yeah, something's really up, because even Connor had said she was a complete hardass, and if you were baggage she didn't pick you up.

And in the state he was in? That was serious baggage.

And then he sulked. Just a little, and that was...that was _all_ Kyle. Sure as hell wasn't his mother.

"Jesus, Kyle," he mutters, watching the kid clack away at his keyboard. John Connor. The guy who taught him to fight, the guy whose ass he and Kyle had saved and who had saved theirs- the guy who gave him his first tattoo, was sitting here in front of him in 2008, 16 years old, and his nephew. "This is so fucked up."


End file.
